The author of “Get Shorty” and “The Hot Kid” was an aggressive anti-adverb activist, a proponent of spare language, and an emphatic enemy of exclamation points and regional dialect. His writing felt, to a reader, effortless.

“People always say, ‘Where do you get (your characters’) words?’ And I say, ‘Can’t you remember people talking or think up people talking in your head?’ That’s all it is. I don’t know why that seems such a wonder to people,” he said to the Associated Press last year.

As if it were that easy. And yet, for him at least, maybe it was.

Take a look at this 2001 New York Times interview, which includes his ten rules of writing. It’s a list worth reading – no prologues (“annoying”), no detailed descriptions (“unless you’re Margaret Atwood”), and no “perpetrating hooptedoodle,” as Writers (with a capital W) tend to do.

He sums up his ten rules with one overarching rule, ergo, “If it sounds like writing, I rewrite it.”

Solid advice.

The Onion had a bit of wholesome fun with the news of Leonard’s death today, announcing Leonard’s death with the headline: “Elmore Leonard, Modern Prose Master, Noted For His Terse Prose Style And For Writing About Things Perfectly And Succinctly With A Remarkable Economy Of Words, Unfortunately And Sadly Expired This Gloomy Tuesday At The Age Of 87 Years Old.”

The PEN/Faulkner foundation announced its annual Literary Award winners Wednesday. The organization bestows almost $150,000 each year to “honor the sustained careers of writers who are distinguished in their fields, raising awareness for a diverse array of outstanding books,” says PEN president Peter Godwin.

Among this year’s winners: Katherine Boo for her bestselling look at life in Mumbai, “Behind the Beautiful Forevers,” Larry Kramer for his body of work as a playwright (which includes “The Normal Heart”), and Frank Deford for his “exceptional contribution” to sports writing.

Crazy Rich Asians
Kevin Kwan (Doubleday)
If this isn’t the funniest book so far this year, it’s up there; author Kevin Kwan’s sprawling send-up of international Chinese high society (most of the important action takes place in Singapore) offers vivid anecdotes about lavish displays of wealth (who needs a wedding band when you can have Cirque du Soleil perform at your nuptuals?), adroit insights on inter-generational relationships (is the favorite son really planning to marry an ABC – American-born Chinese?), and hilarious clashes between “old” and “new” Chinese money (can you truly measure a family’s status by how often they don’t appear in the newspaper?). “Crazy Rich Asians” is a riot, and Kwan, who grew up in Singapore, skewers his subjects deftly, stylishly, and completely – but with heart.

Billed as a sequel to his seminal, Colorado-based blockbuster “The Shining,” the book picks up the story of young Danny Torrance — that creepy kid who talked with his finger, repeating “Redrum, redrum, redrum” over and over.

“Doctor Sleep” by Stephen King.

He’s in his 40s now, and a hospice doctor. And, he’s not the only person in town with the gift of “the shining.” What could go wrong?

Tickets go on sale to Chautauqua members on Thursday, July 10 at 1 p.m. The general public can buy tickets on Friday, July 11 at 1 p.m.

But make some room in your tote bag for this: “Bobcat,” a slim volume of short stories by a prodigiously talented writer, Rebecca Lee. Her work is at once effortless and exacting, sophisticated and ribald.
And when individual stories last for only 30 short pages at a go, you can close the book — and your eyes — and lie back on your chaise to consider it.

The lead story, “Bobcat,” is a prickly, affecting, hilarious and razor-like slice through a Manhattan dinner party shared by friends with shared histories, ambitions and secrets.

In it, a couple wobble their way through preparing the kind of meal they think they should serve their guests: a terrine from “Food & Wine” magazine (which “rightfully should be made over the course of two or three days—heated, cooled, flagellated, changed over time in the flames of the ever-turning world, but our guests were due to arrive within the hour:); a roast “with an infusion of rosemary, palm and olive oils, and a nutty oil made from macadamias.”

Here is an excerpt from the latest in Reilly’s series of Murph novels, “The Heart of Darkness Club,” about a Denver cab driver and his adventures behind the wheel. The eleven-title series, which began with 2012’s “The Asphalt Warrior,” is being released by Running Meter Press over the next few years.

I had been driving a taxi for fourteen years, longer than I had done anything in my life except watch TV. I thought about this as I drove my heap out of Rocky Cab and headed toward Capitol Hill. For the past fourteen years I had lived in a kind of hermetically sealed world, like one of those glass balls filled with water and artificial snow that billionaires drop off their deathbeds. It was a safe and secure little world where the past couldn’t touch me and the future was only a rumor. I had lived hand-to-mouth and had been happy, because I was sustained by the belief that I would sell a novel someday and never have to worry about money again.

This belief actually had begun when I was a kid and didn’t understand much about books. My Maw was reading Peyton Place on evening, so I asked her where the book had come from, and she explained that novels were written by people who got paid to write them. But I just meant where did she buy it, because a friend had told me it was a dirty book and I wanted to shoplift a copy of my own. But her explanation staggered me. They paid people to write books!!! Until that moment I had a vague idea that books were produced in factories, like tires, or else they grew on trees, like money.

I eventually got around to reading Peyton Place, and it wasn’t pretty – I was on guard duty in the army that night so maybe I shouldn’t delve too deeply into that, but the point is, I immediately realized I could write stuff like that, too. Maybe “realize” isn’t the right word – “belief” or “delusion” or “who’s kidding who” might best summarize my attitude. But I never once doubted that it would happen, that I would become a bestselling author and never have to worry about money again.

If you were to ask Dawn French, the British humorist, television personality and author of the new novel “Oh Dear Silvia,” she’d probably tell you: a title character who never speaks, because she’s in a coma. A psychotic stalker who’ll stop at nothing to possess the object of her desire. A deeply dysfunctional, fractured family.

Oh, and a grisly, lethal crime.

“Oh Dear Silvia” takes place entirely in the intensive-care ward of a London hospital where Silvia, recently estranged from her husband, lies unconscious. How she got there, and why, is revealed by the parade of visitors who come to visit her.

There’s Winnie, a West Indian immigrant who speaks in a rich patois and is Silvia’s primary caregiver (and gatekeeper). There’s meek Ed, Silvia’s long-suffering husband, who unwillingly split with Silvia just days before the accident (was it an accident?) that put her in a coma. Is that Jo, Silvia’s kooky sister, bypassing hospital procedure with another wacky swing at a new-age cure? Here comes Cat, Silvia’s unstrung (and occasionally violent) frenemy who alternates loving words with sucker punches. And let’s leave room for Cassie, Silvia’s untrusting daughter, who doesn’t know it yet, but will soon long for a meaningful reunion.Read more…

Winner: “The Orphan Master’s Son” by Adam Johnson: “an exquisitely crafted novel that carries the reader on an adventuresome journey into the depths of totalitarian North Korea and into the most intimate spaces of the human heart.”

Finalists: “What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank,” by Nathan Englander and “The Snow Child,” by Eowyn Ivey.